Minna Everleigh
Chicago was a place of explosive
growth during the industrial revolution and especially after hosting the world’s
fair. With a huge influx of immigrants from Europe and Southern Negroes the
city suddenly had new issues to contend with. The large expanse of growth
especially of men looking for work initially gave way to pastimes for these men;
Saloons, brothels and gambling halls. These vice areas in the city would cause
reformers to object and politicians to turn the other way as long as their
pockets were lined with cash. Vice is described by Merriam-Webster as “moral
depravity or corruption”. The city of Chicago was surely corrupt at this time.
Their moral depravity wasn’t
limited to bribes, drink, and women or gambling, their treatment of immigrants,
Negroes, and especially the poor was failing as well. The idea of the white
upper class Chicagoan was to keep the poor, the immigrants, and the Negros out
of their neighborhoods and away from their schools. “I know the Irish killed a
certain Blvd, I know the Jews hurt another one, and I know the gambling element
killed another one”1. Not to mention that prostitution was rampant
all over the city, especially on the Levee and near State Street.
From 1917-1918 50,000 blacks
moved to Chicago. This sudden explosion of Negro culture was not welcomed to
many Chicagoans. Prior to this time the city already had a long history of
segregation against Negros. In 1908 there were riots after the release of two Negros
from jail. The white community rebelled in an uproar and began rioting and burning
the black business and neighborhoods. This riot resulted in 7 deaths. In the
opinion of many whites in Chicago, especially those that were not poor, they
felt that segregation was very beneficial to the lifestyle they wanted. “Every
colored man who moves into Hyde Park knows he is damaging his white neighbor’s
property.”2 Their desire was for the Negro to stay on the Southside
near the vice areas of the city.
Segregation, slums, ghettos, and
vice were all a problem. The corruption and segregation wasn’t limited to
Chicago, but was in other big cities as well in the North. As Mark Twain said “It
was glittering on the surface, but corrupt underneath.”3 This was
the guilded age. Corruption seemed to trump during this time. Bosses ran
neighborhoods, taking bribes, influencing political committees, and ‘rubbing
the backs of those that rubbed theirs.’
The movement of Negros to the
large cities gave way to the “Jazz Age”, morality and morals again shifted, not
only for men, but woman too. Young women showed their ankles and cut their hair
and went to speakeasies, and danced. Many of these often wealthy high school
and college age kids would mingle with Negros in Negro “Black & Tan” clubs.
Segregation wasn’t a problem for them. Segregation seemed to mostly be a
priority for the older conservative progressives.
Vice I would say seemed to be the
law of the land of Chicago. In every neighborhood, in every adult age group, in
every race, there were places that catered to the vices of those that lived
there. The leaders of these neighborhoods thrived on money, and collected to
allow the continuance of the wicked pleasures that appealed to their residents.
The City of Chicago would need to deal with their segregation issues, but they
first had to start cleaning up their act. Until they were led my moral men, not
only segregation but the corruptness held fast by their vices would continue to
run the town.
2) Chicago Commission of Race Relations, The Negro in Chicago
(Illinois: University of Chicago Press, 1923), 208
Additional sources:
George Brown Tindall & David Emory Shi,
America a Narrative History (New
York: W. W Norton & Company, 2010)
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